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| U.S. healthcare website down overnight for extended upgrade Friday, Nov 29, 2013 04:52 PM PST  By Roberta Rampton and Sharon Begley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government said it would take down the website at the center of President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms for an extended 11-hour period overnight on Friday as technology experts push to complete upgrades by a November 30 deadline. The website, HealthCare.gov, was supposed to make it easy to shop for health insurance required by the Obamacare law when it launched on October 1, but quickly turned into a political disaster after errors and timelags prevented most people who visited the site from signing up. They had worked on software and hardware upgrades through the U.S. Thanksgiving week to double its capacity so as many as 50,000 people could shop at the same time on the site. Just ahead of that self-imposed Saturday deadline, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said the website would be down for an unusually long period, from 9 p.m. EST on Friday until 8 a.m. EST on Saturday. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. healthcare website down for overnight maintenance Friday, Nov 29, 2013 03:45 PM PST By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The website at the center of President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms will be down for an extended period overnight on Friday as the government pushes to complete upgrades by a November 30 deadline, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said. The website, HealthCare.gov, will be down from 9 p.m. EST on Friday until 8 a.m. EST on Saturday, CMS said. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Sandra Maler) Full Story | Top |
| Obama says 'nowhere to go but up' after HealthCare.gov debacle Friday, Nov 29, 2013 02:08 PM PST By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's popularity has taken a beating over the botched October 1 launch of Obamacare, but in a television interview set to air on Friday, Obama said he believes Americans eventually will appreciate his signature healthcare reform. Reflecting on his poll numbers in an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, Obama said: "I've gone up and down pretty much consistently throughout. "But the good thing about when you're down is that usually you got nowhere to go but up," Obama added, according to excerpts released by ABC. The interview was taped last week as the Obama administration scrambled to meet a self-imposed November 30 deadline to overhaul HealthCare.gov, the website used in 36 states to shop for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. Full Story | Top |
| Music-based program may boost seniors' brain function, mood Friday, Nov 29, 2013 01:53 PM PST By C. E. Huggins NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A music-based training program that challenges both the body and the mind may improve brain function and mood among seniors, suggests a new study from Switzerland. "The take-home message is that 6-months of music-based multitask training (i.e., Jaques-Dalcroze eurhythmics) - a specific training regimen which was previously shown to be effective in improving gait and reducing falls - has beneficial effects on cognition and mood in older adults," Dr. Mélany Hars, of Geneva University Hospitals, told Reuters Health in an email. Jacques-Dalcroze eurhythmics was developed in the early part of the 20th century by the Swiss composer Emile Jaques-Dalcroze as a way to better understand music through movement. A typical Jacques-Dalcroze session involves participants adapting their movements to the rhythmic changes of improvised piano music. Full Story | Top |
| Risk factors may point to less-safe senior drivers Friday, Nov 29, 2013 01:09 PM PST By Allison Bond NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tests of physical abilities, such as balance and strength, may reveal how well an elderly driver will perform on the road, according to a new study. Trouble with balance, weak lower limbs and poor neck flexibility were among the attributes Australian researchers linked to a higher risk of less-safe driving in The Journals of Gerontology: Series A. "Although there has been a lot of research on the cognitive and visual predictors of driving performance and safety, very little work has so far looked at physical function and its relation to driving," said Philippe Lacherez, a post-doctoral fellow at Queensland University of Technology who led the study. About 17 percent of the participants made critical errors while driving in a test that was scored by a professional driving instructor and involved a range of traffic densities and complex or simple intersections. In the physical abilities tests, the unsafe drivers tended to have a decreased ability to move the neck, slower reaction times, poor perception of vibration and lack of strength in the legs and feet. Full Story | Top |
| Saatchi says has no proof ex-wife Nigella Lawson took drugs Friday, Nov 29, 2013 12:37 PM PST  By Alexander Winning LONDON (Reuters) - Millionaire art dealer Charles Saatchi told a British court on Friday he had no proof that his celebrity ex-wife, TV chef Nigella Lawson, ever took drugs. Earlier this week, two of Lawson's former personal assistants alleged that she was a regular user of cocaine and other drugs as part of their defense in an ongoing fraud trial. Lawson, often nicknamed the "Domestic Goddess" after the title of one of her best-selling recipe books, is a cookery author who is popular in Britain and the United States. Saatchi and Lawson ended their 10-year marriage in July, and he accepted a police caution after newspapers published pictures of him with his hands around his ex-wife's neck at a London restaurant a month earlier. Full Story | Top |
| Staying active all day linked to healthy aging Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:52 AM PST  By Kathryn Doyle NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A generally active life, even without regular exercise sessions, was tied to better heart health and greater longevity in a study of older Swedes. "We have known for 60 years that physical activity is important for the heart," said lead author Elin Ekblom-Bak, of the Åstrand Laboratory of Work Physiology of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences in Stockholm. For older people, who tend to exercise vigorously less than younger people, spending more time doing low-intensity activities like these could help cut down on sitting time, Ekblom-Bak and her colleagues write in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. At the study's outset, people who were more active on a daily basis, regardless of their exercise levels, tended to have smaller waists and healthier cholesterol levels. Full Story | Top |
| Military deployments tied to teens' depression Friday, Nov 29, 2013 10:28 AM PST By Kathleen Raven NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Adolescents who experience the deployment of a family member in the U.S. military may face an increased risk of depression, suggests a new study. Ninth- and eleventh-grade students in California public schools with two or more deployment experiences over the past decade were 56 percent more likely to feel sad or hopeless compared with their non-military-family peers, the researchers found. The same kids were 34 percent more likely to have suicidal thoughts. The study is one of very few that compare students from military families to their non-military peers, said Julie Cederbaum, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who led the study. Full Story | Top |
| Journal withdraws controversial French Monsanto GM study Friday, Nov 29, 2013 07:59 AM PST  Reed Elsevier's Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT)journal, which published the study by the French researcher Gilles-Eric Seralini in September 2012, said the retraction was because the study's small sample size meant no definitive conclusions could be reached. "Ultimately, the results presented - while not incorrect - are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology." At the time of its original publication, hundreds of scientists across the world questioned Seralini's research, which said rats fed Monsanto's GM corn had suffered tumors and multiple organ failure. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued a statement in November 2012 saying the study by Seralini, who was based at France's University of Caen, had serious defects in design and methodology and did not meet acceptable scientific standards. In its retraction statement, the FCT said that, in light of these concerns, it too had asked to view the raw data. Full Story | Top |
| Angola says Dos Santos is fine, denies cancer treatment report Friday, Nov 29, 2013 07:29 AM PST  Angola on Friday denied a report by Portuguese state TV that President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was undergoing cancer treatment, saying the long-serving 71-year-old was in good health. The RTP report on Thursday said Dos Santos had checked in to the oncology unit of a clinic in Barcelona. "He is in good health and will return within days." In power since 1979, Dos Santos is Africa's second longest-serving leader. He flew to Barcelona from Luanda on November 9 on a private visit. Full Story | Top |
| Russian prosecutors seek nine years for acid attack dancer Friday, Nov 29, 2013 07:01 AM PST  By Maria Tsvetkova MOSCOW (Reuters) - State prosecutors demanded a nine-year jail sentence on Friday for a dancer accused of ordering an acid attack that nearly blinded the Bolshoi Ballet's artistic director and exposed bitter rivalries at one of Russia's great cultural institutions. Pavel Dmitrichenko, a former soloist at the Bolshoi, showed no emotion as he sat still in a courtroom cage listening to the prosecution summary in a trial that lasted one month. The prosecution also asked for 10 years in prison for Yuri Zarutsky, who is accused of throwing the acid in artistic director Sergei Filin's face last January, and six years for Andrei Lipatov, accused of driving him to and from the scene. "Dmitrichenko's motive was a conflict between Filin and Dmitrichenko," prosecutor Yulia Shumovskaya told the Moscow court, saying the dispute was caused by the dancer's disappointment at not being given good roles by Filin. Full Story | Top |
| Angola denies report that Dos Santos treated for cancer in Spain Friday, Nov 29, 2013 02:45 AM PST  Angola on Friday denied a report by Portuguese state TV that the oil-producing African state's long-serving President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was undergoing cancer treatment in Spain. "I don't have anything to say, because it is not true," Angolan Foreign Minister Georges Chikoti told reporters in Luanda. The RTP report, broadcast late on Thursday, said dos Santos had checked in to the oncology unit of a clinic in Barcelona. The 71-year-old dos Santos has been in power in Africa's second-biggest oil producer since 1979, making him the continent's second longest-serving leader. Full Story | Top |
| Masked artist makes sticky issue out of radiation in Japan Friday, Nov 29, 2013 02:00 AM PST  By Sophie Knight TOKYO (Reuters) - With his face hidden behind sunglasses and a white surgical mask, the artist is almost as invisible as the radioactive contamination he is protesting against - yet his stickers are graphic reminders of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Known as 281 Antinuke, Japan's answer to Banksy has covered Tokyo streets in images depicting politicians as vampires and children being shielded from radioactive rain to highlight the consequences of a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant after an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. The disaster and the response by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) stoked anti-nuclear sentiment and the biggest public protests in Japan since the 1960s, but the movement has since lost momentum. "Perhaps because everyone believes people telling them on television that everything is fine, they don't seem so worried," 281 Antinuke told Reuters. Full Story | Top |
| Isolation fuels radicalization in arid north Cameroon Friday, Nov 29, 2013 01:57 AM PST By Misha Hussain DOUGUI, Cameroon, Nov 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Nafisa Isa lost her home when a dam broke and flooded her village. Treatments distributed by U.N. child agency UNICEF near the camp have been seized by unscrupulous government officials who then sell them to desperate mothers, Nafisa said. Her plight highlights the broader one in semi-arid Far North region, home to 4 million people - a fifth of Cameroon's population. Many say neglect by the government in Yaounde, 700 km (400 miles) away in the largely Christian south, has left the predominantly Muslim Far North with the country's worst development indicators. Full Story | Top |
| European firms size up Iran's post-deal potential Friday, Nov 29, 2013 01:57 AM PST  By Alexandra Hudson BERLIN (Reuters) - The phone hasn't stopped ringing at the German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce since six world powers reached a deal with Tehran to curb its nuclear program, opening the prospect that Iran can begin to shake off its economic isolation. A strategically located country with massive oil and gas reserves, an urgent need to overhaul its creaking infrastructure, and a young population of 76 million is of particular interest to export champion Germany, once Iran's largest trade partner. "We are speaking to companies interested in doing business with Iran all day," said Michael Tockuss, director of the chamber of commerce. The preliminary accord struck in Geneva on Sunday, which brings up to $7 billion worth of sanctions relief to Iran, could still come unstuck after 10 years of distrust and rancor, leading to yet deeper sanctions that could sink any hasty investments. Full Story | Top |
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